LITMIR.BIZ

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it was such a good idea.

      It seemed, to Kaylin, that he spoke only to her.

      Dry-mouthed, she nodded.

      He stepped forward through the portcullis. As if it were shadow, and only shadow. Drawing breath, Kaylin looked to either side for support, and then did as he had done: She stepped into the gate.

      It enfolded her.

      She screamed.

      When she woke, her head ached, her mouth was dry and she would have bet she’d had a terrific evening with Teela and Tain in the bar down the street—if she could remember any of it. That lasted for as long as it took her to realize that her bed was way too soft, her room was way too big, her door lacked bolts and had gained height and her windows were nonexistent.

      That, and she had a companion.

      She reached for her daggers. They weren’t there. In fact neither were her leathers. Or her tunic, or the one pair of pants she had that hadn’t been cut to pieces.

      Lord Nightshade stood in the center of the almost empty room. If there were no windows, light was abundant, and it was both soft enough to soothe the eye, and harsh enough to see clearly by. The floor beneath his feet was marble and gold, and he seemed to be standing in the center of a large circle.

      “You will forgive me,” he said, making a command out of what would, from anyone else, have been an apology. “I did not expect your passage here to be so … costly. Your former clothing was inappropriate for my halls. It will be returned to you when you leave.”

      The when sounded distinctly like an if.

      She wasn’t naked. Exactly.

      But her arms were bare to the shoulder, and she hated that. She never, ever wore anything that didn’t fall past her wrists, and for obvious reasons. The thick distinct lines of swirling black seemed to move up and down her forearms as she glanced at them. She didn’t look long.

      Dizzy, she rose. Her dress—and it was a dress of midnight-blue, long, fine and elegantly simple—rose with her, clinging to the skin. It was a pleasant sensation. And it was not.

      Teela and Tain were the Barrani she knew best, and they never came to work dressed like this. It made her wonder what they did in their off hours. Which made her redden. She wondered who had changed her, and that didn’t help.

      But the fieflord simply waited, watching her as if uncertain what she would do. She lifted her right arm, and saw that the gold manacle still encased it, gems flashing in sequence. A warning.

      “Yes,” he said softly. “That was … unexpected. I have not seen its like in many, many years—and I suspect not even then. Where did you get it?”

      “It was a gift.”

      “From the Lord Grammayre?”

      She nodded.

      “It did not come from him. Not directly.” He stepped outside of the golden circle inlayed upon the ground and approached her. But he approached her slowly, as if she were wild. “My apologies,” he said, less of a command in the words. “But I wished to see for myself if you bore the marks.”

      “And now?” she asked bitterly.

      “I know. If you are hungry, you may eat. Food will be brought. These rooms have been little used for many years. They are not fit for guests.”

      “Where are my—where are Severn and Tiamaris?”

      “I found it convenient to leave them behind,” he replied gravely. “But they are unharmed, and they know that you are likewise unharmed. If they are wise, they will wait.”

      “And if they aren’t?”

      “These are my halls,” he said coldly. “And not even a Dragon may enter them with impunity.”

      “But he’s been here before.”

      The fieflord raised a brow. “How do you know that, little one?”

      “I’m not called ‘little,’” she replied. She wanted to snap the words; they came out sounding, to her ears, pathetic.

      “And what are you called now?”

      “Kaylin. Kaylin Neya.”

      His other brow rose. And fell. “Interesting. Yes, you are correct. Tiamaris has indeed visited the Long Halls. If any could find their way in, uninvited, it would be he. But I think, for the moment, he is content to wait. It will keep your Severn alive.”

      “He’s not mine,” she said. And I don’t want him alive. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words to the fieflord. Didn’t want to know why.

      He held out a hand.

      She tried to ignore it. But she found herself lifting hand in response. As if this were a dream. He took the hand; his skin was cool. Hers was damp.

      “These are the Halls of Nightshade,” he said quietly. “Come. There are things here I wish you to see.” Without another word, he led her from the room.

      She expected the doors to open into a hall.

      So much for expectation. They opened instead into what must have been a forest. Not that she’d seen forests—not up close—but she’d seen them at a distance, when Clint had taken her flying to the Aeries of his kin. Here, the trees grew up, and up again, until they reached the rounded height of a ceiling that she could only barely glimpse through the greenery.

      She walked slowly, her hand still captive to the fieflord’s, but he seemed to be in no hurry. And why would he? If he didn’t manage to get himself killed, he had forever. Time meant nothing to him.

      At his side, in waking dream, it could almost mean nothing to her. She touched the rough surface of brown bark, and then moved on to the smooth surface of silver-white; she touched leaves that had fallen across the ground like a tapestry, a gentle riot of color. All of her words deserted her, which was just as well; she didn’t have any fine enough to describe what she saw.

      And had she, she wouldn’t have exposed it. Beauty meant something to her, and she kept it to herself, as she kept most things that meant anything.

      “There is no sunlight,” he told her, as if that made sense. “But outcaste or no, I am still Barrani Lord—they grow at my whim.”

      “And if you don’t want them?”

      He gestured. The tree just beyond the tip of her fingers withered, twisting toward the ground almost as if it were begging. She stopped herself from crying out. It was just a plant.

      She didn’t ask again, however. And she kept her wonder contained; she looked; she touched nothing else. He had offered her a warning, in subtle Barrani fashion. She took it.

      “Where are we going?”

      “To the heart of this forest,” he replied. “Be honored. Not even my own have seen it.”

      “Your children?”

      His brows drew in. “Are you truly so ignorant, Kaylin?”

      “Apparently.”

      His hand tightened. It was not comfortable. Another warning. But he chose to do no more than that, and after a pause, he surprised her. He answered. “I have no children. I am outcaste.”

      Outcaste was a word that had meaning for Kaylin, but in truth, not much. Although one human lord served as Caste-lord for her kind, the complicated laws of the caste did not apply to the rank and file. It certainly didn’t apply to the paupers and the beggars who made a living—or didn’t—in the fiefs. The Leontines, the Aerians and the humans—mortal races all—were not defined in the same way by caste; they were more numerous, and their lives reached from the lowest of gutters to the highest of towers. Not so, the Barrani.

      “I spoke simply of my kin,

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